


Letting You Go

by levicas



Series: Supernatural Prompts [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, because i'm incapable of writing anything that isn't angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 21:56:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levicas/pseuds/levicas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The prompt was the very vague phrase: "I need to gather the strength to just let go"</p><p>In which Dean is having nightmares and finding it difficult to cope with Cas' death - especially since there's no chance of him coming back this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letting You Go

**Author's Note:**

> Set some time in season eight, I really don't know where I was going with this. Take it how you will.

Dean was running, but he couldn't feel his legs move beneath him. He was numb, completely numb. The only thing he could feel was the stabbing in his chest that wasn't really there, and the taste of blood in his mouth. He didn't notice his surroundings, all he could think was _get out, get out_ and yet he didn't want to. He wanted to stop running and face what was after him. Running never solved anything, and he couldn't run any longer.

"You let me die!" Castiel called after him, and suddenly Dean couldn't run anymore. He couldn't if he tried anyway, there was a wall in front of him which he could have sworn hadn't been there before. If he was being honest, he thought he was running through a forest, not stuck down a dark alleyway but then again he couldn't quote himself on that. "You may as well have killed me yourself."

He turned to look at Cas - he was gruesome. He didn't look like Castiel, but of course he wasn't anymore. He was dead. His dark hair was matted in different directions, and the wings held out behind him were torn, singed and a dappled kind of black as if they were covered in soot. His eyes weren't soft and confused as usual, they were glassy and hollow. No life hid behind them, no emotion. Not even the rage that was displayed over the rest of his face. His trenchcoat was dirty, his shirt was no longer crisp and white, and somewhere along the line he'd lost his tie. He looked exactly how Dean remembered, a sharp cut across his left cheek with blood seeping from it, a limp in his right leg and blood pouring down his arms from underneath his rolled-up sleeves. 

He was getting a horrible sense of deja vu, as far as Dean remembered Castiel and alleyways didn't often bode well for him. 

Before he could figure out how to get away, rough, dry hands were closing around his throat and he was gasping for breath. 

"Cas, please--" he choked as black spots clouded his vision and tiny droplets of water formed in his eyes. The black spots grew, until all he could see was nothingness.

"Dean!" 

Dean bolted upright in what he would find a rather comical way were he not so out of it. He looked around, seeing nothing but four badly papered walls and Sam sitting on the bed across from him, reading something nerdy.

"Dude, are you alright?"

Dean pressed his hand to his throat, and after finding no sensitivity or evidence of being choked he relaxed. 

"Nightmares again?" Dean didn't respond, he didn't want Sam to think he was some sort of girl who got scared shitless by a few recurring dreams. Even if they did scare him shitless. Dean lay back down on the bed, finding it was damp with sweat, and pulled the covers over his head and cuddling the dirty trenchcoat he slept with tight to his chest. It smelled like Cas. It was pathetic how it comforted him, how, when he was surrounded by Cas' scent - a smell which he couldn't even begin to describe - he didn't feel so lonely anymore.

In his dreams, he wasn't scared of Cas - how could he be? It was Cas. Only it wasn't, it was some deformed form of the angel that Dean's subconscious had created. Dream-Cas was right, though, and that hurt the most. It had been Dean's stupid idea to track down Naomi. He'd been so full of rage and the need for revenge that he hadn't even thought. They found her, and she stabbed Cas in the heart with the angel blade and disappeared. She didn't stab him properly, nor did she intend to, she made him die slowly and painfully. He died in Dean's arms, and the mark of Cas' wings was engraved into the skin of his torso. 

The guilt rose in his throat, it had been weeks now. Weeks of mindless hunting and killing, weeks of Sam trying to get him to talk. After they'd cremated Cas - a hunter's funeral - Dean had barely said a word that wasn't strictly business related, and he'd certainly said nothing about Castiel. He couldn't admit how lost he was. Cas had gone before, heck, he'd even died before. But this time there was no coming back. The tears pricked his eyes. How could he have been so stupid? He went in guns blazing, no plan of action and got his best friend killed. He'd lost everything, and everyone. He only had Sam now, and he could disappear at any moment and decide he wanted out. He could just drop out from the life, and go find Amelia and live in the light at the end of the tunnel.

He couldn't imagine living like that, more alone than he already was. No angels watching over him anymore.

To think he'd never told Cas that--

No. Too late now. No point dwelling on it. 

_Not when you're the reason he's dead._

He winced, and let out a small whimper.

Sam sighed, and dropped his book after dog-earing the page to mark his page, and sat next to Dean on his bed. He was curled up on his side in a fetal position, and trembling with sobs that threatened to break him. 

"C'mon," Sam huffed, pulling his brother - who was heavier than he'd anticipated - into a sitting position. Dean flopped into Sam's side, unable to support himself or simply not caring enough to try, and rested against his chest, listening to the steady, soothing sound of his brother's heart beat. "Talk to me," Sam said softly, "a problem shared is a problem halved." Dean wondered how he did it, managed to sound so blase about everything. 

"Dean, if you don't start talking I'm going to have to beat it out of you," Sam threatened, although in a light tone that would normally have made Dean laugh. It'd been weeks since Dean had laughed. The last time had been the night before the hunt where Cas--

It was one of those cheap, tacky bars where prostitutes go to pick up customers when they're not working in a brothel or strip club. They were drinking to freedom, to Team Free Will, and to the end of Naomi, which never came. Cas looked terrified - didn't that bring back a certain memory - and Dean and Sam spent most of the evening laughing at the look on his face when the waitress, Janie, stroked up his leg in an attempt to seduce him. Castiel had glared at them at the time, but after they'd returned to the motel they'd laughed all night. 

It seemed so long ago. Since then the hours and days and weeks had been dragging out. At first Dean past the time with hunting, and hunting viciously, but more recently it took a great deal of coaxing from Sam to get him up and out of bed before noon. He wasn't numb, like in the dreams, he was broken and sad and scared and _lonely_ and each day was a marathon he was far too tired to run. There was a monster inside of him that ate him from the inside out, leaving a gaping hole named Cas in it's wake.

He was crying now, really crying. Ugly, hot, snotty tears that dried into Sam's shirt. "I-I just...I j-just miss - him. S-so much." The memory replayed itself every night before he went to sleep, and no release came from sleep itself. Only running. Memories of Cas flooded his mind, so many opportunities he'd wasted. Never had he imagined he would miss his angel as much as he did, until he was gone. He'd seen the life flicker out of his eyes, his grace didn't light up and flood out of him like it should have done. Instead it drained slowly, taunting Dean and making him watch every second of Cas' pain. He'd pulled him tight against his chest, as if holding him tightly enough would stop him from fading. The look Castiel had given him, it was so different from the dreams - it was the single look that held him onto reality, that ensured him that Cas wouldn't hate him, even if he should, for sending him to his death. It said so much, and yet so little. Castiel had a way of doing that, saying a thousand things with his eyes when he couldn't find the right words to say them out loud. Dean would miss that the most.

Sam didn't say anything, he just let his brother cry in his arms, rocking him slowly back and forward. He didn't mutter "it's okay"s or "everything's gonna be alright"s because it wouldn't be true, not to Dean anyway. Instead, Sam said something else, that would mean much more.

"He's still watching over you,"


End file.
